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This week’s White House Report Card has split our graders over President Trump’s actions in classic left-right fashion, just like the nation.

Our graders, conservative analyst Jed Babbin and Democratic pollster John Zogby, gave starkly different reviews of Trump, whose week was highlighted by signing a rare emergency declaration to steer money not OK’d by Congress to his border wall project.

Jed Babbin
Grade A-

It was a very good week for President Trump, including the Senate confirmation of Attorney General William Barr, a compromise on government funding, a national emergency declaration intended to fund partial building of his signature border wall, and a Senate Intelligence Committee statement that their investigation hadn’t found any direct evidence of his campaign colluding with the Russians during the 2016 election.

Trump’s action avoided another government shutdown. The 1,200-page compromise spending bill was, however, not a good deal. Trump got about $1.4 billion in funding for border barriers, but the bill was chock full of poison pills that limited what kind of barrier can be built, where it can be built, and more provisions that are anathema to the president. Among them are a pay raise for federal workers and $415 million in aid payments to border crossers.

On Friday, Trump signed the bill and declared a national emergency on the border crisis. The national emergency is intended to free up other funds — mostly from unspent military construction appropriations — to give the president another $3 billion to work with. But the national emergency declaration, as Trump predicted in his Friday announcement, is subject to challenge in court. The first lawsuit challenging the validity of the national emergency declaration was filed in Washington, D.C. federal court before the day ended.

Barr takes over at the moment of new revelations about the FBI and the Justice Department talking about removing the president under the 25th Amendment. Barr’s toughest job will be to clean out the FBI and the Justice Department of those who abused their powers to Trump’s disadvantage in the election and after it.

Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said its investigation had not found any direct evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign with the Russians. Burr’s committee’s investigation is regarded as the most bipartisan on the Hill.

And overseas, Vice President Mike Pence was in Europe scolding our allies there to get end their efforts to get around U.S sanctions to continue to trade with Iran. His efforts aren’t likely to succeed.

John Zogby
Grade F

President Trump ends the week with an average gain in the polls. This despite polls showing opposition to his southern border wall.

Trump continues to use false premises and outrageously inaccurate statistics to promote the wall, but more people are seeing through the manipulation he is using to fulfill his famous campaign promise. While he compromised with Congress to avert another government shutdown, he issued a controversial order calling the southern border crisis so he can fund the wall.

This is dangerous on several different fronts and challenges the limits of his executive power and the Constitution.

As an elected official, Trump is supposed to act with the majority behind him. His wall move is policy and governance by tantrum.

Jed Babbin is an Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in administration of former President George H.W. Bush. Follow him on Twitter @jedbabbin

John Zogby is the founder of the Zogby Poll and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is We are Many, We are One: Neo-Tribes and Tribal Analytics in 21st Century America. Follow him on Twitter @TheJohnZogby